In many sporting activities, such as white water river rafting, the enthusiasts prefer to wear sandals. However, such comfortable foot wear is often more of a menace than a help because they are lost at inopportune times, leaving the wearer without a protective sole between his feet and a rocky river bottom or can dangerously entangled a wearer in his partially dislodged footware leading to injury.
Typical sandals are totally unsuitable for such sporting activities, such as surfing, swimming and running, where the performance of the retention mechanism is critical in retaining the sandal on the wearer's foot during his rigorous activity.
With more focus on physical fitness of the general population a great deal of interest had developed in sport sandals. Sandals with extensive lacing from side to side across the sole and around the ankle do measure up to the requirements for footwear used by sports enthusiasts, but they are usually highly uncomfortable and difficult to lace properly as well as requiring arduous patience for this time consuming task.
Applicant earlier developed a sandal design which overcame many of the problems with the lace type sandals; it is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,584,782 issued to Thatcher on Apr. 29, 1986. Shortly after its introduction it was well received by sports enthusiasts and gained a substantial and immediate market share. It was a vast improvement over the prior art sandals, such as those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,642,677 issued to Yates, 4,051,610 issued to Shigeji and 4,200,997 issued to Scheinhaue et al.
However a draw back with Applicant's patented sandal was many users did not like its retention strap or post positioned between the toes which some times caused chaffing during very vigorous sport activities. Also a common complaint is that it is difficult to wear socks with the patent sandals unless the socks were specially constructed with a "V" between the big toe and the next one.
Applicant has now found by using an anchoring system with infinitely adjustable straps and a cross strap across the base of the toes connected to the heel straps with a lateral strap positioned along the outside of the foot connecting the toe strap and heel straps systems, the retention requirements of sandal for those engaged in rigorous sport activities can be met without any loss of comfort.
Further the novel sandal is easy to slip into and out of once it is cinched properly by merely opening the instep strap and is completely adjustable to any wearer's foot.